The Senility of Vladimir P

by Michael Honig

  ‘I think he’s gone.’

  ‘He’s here!’

  Sheremetev left. A minute later he returned with Vasya, Belkin and Rostkhenkovskaya and led them past the closed door of the sitting room into Vladimir’s bedroom.

  ‘Where is he?’ whispered Belkin.

  ‘In another room. Come through. The watches are here.’

  Sheremetev took them into the dressing room. He turned on the light and gestured to the wooden cabinet.

  Belkin opened the doors. He hesitated, as if heightening the moment of climax, and then slid out the top tray.

  At the sight of the fifteen watches nestled in their velvet-lined clefts, he and Rostkhenkovskaya exchanged an awed glance.

  ‘A Vacheron Tour de l’Ile,’ whispered Belkin, pointing.

  Rostkhenkovskaya nodded. ‘And another one! There. Look.’

  For an instant longer, they stared as if the objects of their lust had momentarily paralysed them. Then Belkin opened his briefcase and his thick, sausage-like fingers reached for the watches. In four quick handfuls, he had cleared the tray.

  He opened the second tray and grabbed another clutch of watches as Rostkhenkovskaya did the same. They emptied the third tray, and the fourth. They weren’t even looking at the pieces now, just scooping the watches up and dropping them in by the handful. Their greed oozed out of them like an oily sheen.

  Sheremetev tried to get a peek into Belkin’s case. As far as he could tell, it was empty but for the watches that had just gone into it. But then . . . where was the money they had said they were bringing for him?

  Sheremetev took a step closer, trying to get a look into the briefcase Rostkhenkovskaya was filling.

  ‘Where’s Monarov?’

  Sheremetev jumped. Belkin and Rostkhenkovskaya froze, watches in hand, then turned to see an old man in a blue sweater and grey trousers standing behind them.

  ‘Where’s Monarov?’ demanded Vladimir, peering at each of them to see if anyone was his dead crony. His eyes lingered on Vasya, who stared back at him, mouth agape.

  ‘I told you, Vladimir Vladimirovich,’ said Sheremetev, ‘he’s coming later.’ Sheremetev took Vladimir by the arm. ‘Come on, let’s go back. It’s just workmen here. They need to finish what they’re doing.’

  ‘Monarov’s coming, is he?’

  ‘Yes, he’s coming. Soon.’

  Vladimir looked at Sheremetev suspiciously. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I’m sure. I’ll let you know as soon as he’s here.’

  ‘With his report!’

  ‘Yes, Vladimir Vladimirovich, with his report.’

  Sheremetev nudged Vladimir again, and the old man shuffled away with him back to the sitting room.

  A couple of minutes later, Sheremetev returned. Belkin and Rostkhenkovskaya had finished ransacking the cabinet. When they had run out of space in their cases, they had filled their pockets.

  ‘Well?’ said Sheremetev.

  Belkin grinned. ‘He really knows nothing, does he?’

  The tone of Belkin’s question and the repulsive grin on his face brought out a protective instinct in Sheremetev. ‘He’s got dementia. That’s how it is. It can happen to any of us.’

  ‘He’s worse than he looks on the TV.’

  ‘Watch out it doesn’t happen to you,’ retorted Sheremetev. ‘All the watches you can steal will mean nothing then.’

  Belkin laughed. ‘They’ll mean a lot until it happens, though. Right! We’re ready. Thank you, Nikolai Ilyich. You’ve been very helpful. We’ll be going now.’

  ‘And the money, Aleksandr Semyonovich? The half million?’

  ‘Yes, the half million. Listen, Nikolai Ilyich, we’ve been thinking . . .’ Belkin grimaced, as if it was a difficult decision that he had to announce. ‘We can’t give it to you.’

  ‘You mean you don’t have it with you? Do I have to come and get it tomorrow?’

  ‘No, I mean, we’re not going to give it to you. At all.’

  Sheremetev stared at him.

  ‘See, the way I look at it – excuse me for putting it bluntly, Nikolai Ilyich – half a million dollars isn’t a puff of air, and even if one can afford to give it, if one doesn’t have to, why should one? What are you going to do? Are you going to go to someone and say, I did a deal with these people to let them steal all of Vladimir Vladimirovich’s watches, but then they didn’t give me my cut? I don’t think you’re going to do that. Believe me, if you do, you’ll be in prison longer than me. I’ll buy my way out of the charges. What will you do?’

  Sheremetev’s mind reeled. He turned to Rostkhenkovskaya. ‘You never even brought it, did you?’

  She didn’t reply.

  Sheremetev searched for something to say. All he could think of was what Stepanin had done. ‘I’ll get someone to firebomb you,’ he muttered.

  Rostkhenkovskaya smiled.

  ‘Come on, Nikolai Ilyich,’ said Belkin, ‘you’re not that kind of guy. You know, I really do believe you’re an honest fellow. A rarity – and a conundrum! An honest man stealing watches. What has Russia come to when we see such a thing?’ He laughed. ‘You should be thankful to us for relieving you of the temptation. Don’t eat yourself up about it. What have you lost? How many years did you say you worked here? Six? For six years, you didn’t touch these watches. You were never going to. Here they stayed – now I’ve got them. They weren’t yours before, they’re not yours now. You’ve lost nothing.’

  ‘But Pasha . . .’

  ‘Ah, yes, the nephew. That really is what this is all about, isn’t it? Tell me, how much do you really need for him?’

  ‘Three hundred thousand dollars.’

  Belkin tutted. ‘So you lied as well. Shame on you, Nikolai Ilyich.’

  ‘He needs some money to leave the country.’

  ‘Two hundred thousand?’

  ‘Forget that. Give me three hundred thousand. Just let me get him out of jail.’

  Belkin laughed.

  ‘Please,’ he begged. ‘Three hundred, that’s all.’

  ‘Or what?’

  Sheremetev had no reply to that. He turned his gaze on Vasya. ‘Are you going to let them do this?’

  ‘Papa . . .’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘It’s business, Papa. What do you want me to do? They’re the client, not you.’

  ‘But they lied to me!’

  ‘You lied to them too.’

  ‘It’s not the same.’

  Vasya shrugged.

  ‘And your cousin?’

  ‘He’s an idiot. How many times do I have to tell you that? I’m not responsible. Let him write what he wants and let him take the consequences.’

  ‘But this is wrong!’ cried Sheremetev. ‘Vasya! These two people promised me half a million in return for the millions and millions they’ve got in those bags. You heard them! And now, nothing? Is that right? Is that just? Go! Go outside and get your thugs. They’ll do anything you say.’

  ‘Papa . . . listen . . . I can’t do that. I’m a businessman. It’s a cutthroat world, you have no idea. I have nothing but my reputation. I told you, I have a good business with the jewellery people. One talks to the other. Do you know what would happen if I did what you say? No one would trust me. I’d never get another client.’

  Belkin nodded gravely. ‘The relationship with the client is sacred, Nikolai Ilyich. You should understand, you’re a nurse. It’s like you and your patients.’

  Sheremetev shook his head, stunned and horrified by the analogy.

  ‘That’s how it is, Papa. You can ask them yourself for the money. I can’t do anything. If they say no, it’s no.’

  Swallowing his loathing for the other man, Sheremetev turned again to Belkin. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Please give me the money to get my nephew Pasha out of jail.’

  Belkin glanced at Rostkhenkovskaya, then gestured towards her, as if leaving the decision in her hands.

  A flame of hope came alight in Sheremetev’s heart.

  ‘No,’
she said.

  ‘But Anna Mikhailovna —’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Aleksandr Semyonovich?’ cried Sheremetev in desperation.

  ‘You heard her.’

  The two watch thieves headed out of the dressing room.

  ‘Wait!’ said Sheremetev, running after them.

  ‘What now?’ demanded Belkin irritably.

  ‘You’ve taken everything!’

  ‘So?’

  ‘You have to leave something. People are used to seeing a watch on his wrist. One day one watch, one day another. If they don’t, they’ll start to wonder what’s happened. Someone will investigate. And people saw you come in today, even if you gave a false identity. There are cameras here also.’

  ‘He’s got a point, Sasha,’ said Rostkhenkovskaya.

  ‘You think so?’ said Belkin. ‘I think it’s a trick to make us leave him something. If anyone does investigate, how much will it take to buy them off?’

  ‘In the case of the ex-president’s watches,’ said Rostkhenkovskaya, ‘who knows?’

  She gazed at him pointedly. Eventually Belkin sighed and shook his head. He put his briefcase down on Vladimir’s bed and opened it, looked over the tangled mass of watches, selected half a dozen and put them on Vladimir’s bedside table. As he went to close the case, he stopped and fished another one out.

  ‘You can have this one for yourself,’ he said derisively, and he tossed it to Sheremetev. ‘In the whole collection, this was the only piece of shit.’

  He snapped the briefcase closed.

  Rostkhenkovskaya was already heading for the door. Belkin went with her.

  Vasya gazed at his father, who stood helplessly, arms by his sides, his face with its lacerated cheek torn between confusion and despair. For a moment, their eyes met.

  Vasya shrugged and followed his clients out.

  Sheremetev slumped to the floor. He looked at the watch that Belkin had thrown him. You didn’t have to be an expert to recognise this one. Even he knew what it was – a plain old Poljot from Soviet times, battered, scratched and worn.

  DISBELIEF. HUMILIATION. HOPELESSNESS. SHEREMETEV felt like an old rag that someone had picked up and wiped themselves with and thrown away. He was nothing: Nikolai Ilyich Sheremetev, a worm, a slug, a mushroom, a little man who knew nothing about how anything worked, a fool who had been taken advantage of all his life in this Russia which was a paradise, above all, for those who took advantage of fools. Well, here he was, unable to find a way to get even a few hundred thousand dollars to save his nephew when for six years he had had a cabinet of watches worth – How much? Ten million dollars? Twenty million? – at his sole disposal.

  He keeled over and lay flat on the floor in self-hatred and misery.

  Eventually the sound of Vladimir’s mumblings and grumblings, growing in volume, penetrated his consciousness. He lay listening for a while. He had to get Vladimir up, get him into his pyjamas, get him into bed . . . And for what? So he could do the same thing tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, as he had done for the last six years . . . And in the meantime, his son had turned into a gangster, and not just any kind of gangster. A gangster who would stand by and watch as his own father was cheated and abused.

  He got wearily to his feet and put the Poljot watch with the others that Belkin had left on Vladimir’s bedside table. The laceration in his cheek, which had been partially reopened the previous day, throbbed a little, just enough for him to be conscious of it.

  He went to the sitting room.

  ‘Come on, Vladimir Vladimirovich,’ said Sheremetev quietly, feeling that he didn’t have the energy even to hate this man any more, as he had started to do. ‘It’s time for bed.’

  Vladimir scrutinised the face that had suddenly loomed up in front of him. He could smell the Chechen. He was definitely somewhere here. Vladimir tried to peer around the small man in front of him to see if the Chechen was behind him.

  ‘Vladimir Vladimirovich,’ said Sheremetev, almost in tears, ‘please.’

  He pulled gently on Vladimir’s arm. After a moment, the old man got up and Sheremetev led him to the bedroom.

  As Sheremetev got him changed, Vladimir kept scanning the room. Sheremetev slipped him an extra sedative tablet with his pills. Vladimir lay in bed staring straight up, as always, in that pose of his that made him seem so alone as he went to sleep.

  ‘Goodnight, Vladimir Vladimirovich,’ murmured Sheremetev, and left.

  He felt numb, not knowing how even to start to understand what had happened to him that evening. He had had no food since he ate Vladimir’s leftovers from lunch. Maybe, he thought, having something to eat would make him feel better – it certainly couldn’t make him feel worse. He remembered Eleyekov saying that Stepanin had made it up with Barkovskaya. The thought didn’t do much to lift his spirits, but it was something. At least he could go down without having to hear about another firebombing or arm-breaking or shooting.

  In the dining room, Sheremetev found Lyosha and half a dozen of the security men gathered around the table with bottles of vodka, looking as if those weren’t the first ones they had opened.

  The conversation stopped.

  ‘Good evening,’ said Sheremetev.

  A couple of them grunted in reply.

  Sheremetev glanced at his watch. Normally, at this time, the dining room was empty.

  He spotted a big dish of chicken fricassee on the sideboard, still warm. Sheremetev took a helping and sat down.

  No one said a word.

  He took a mouthful of the fricassee. Over the past couple of weeks, he had come to realise that you could tell Stepanin’s mood from the quality of his cooking. The cook had obviously cheered up.

  He ate more. The guards around him drank.

  ‘How’s Artur?’ he said.

  Lyosha shrugged. ‘Not too bad. Not too good,’ he muttered. His shaven scalp gleamed with a slick of alcohol-induced sweat. He had obviously put a lot away since Sheremetev had glimpsed Stepanin with him earlier in the evening.

  ‘Any news on whether he’ll walk again?’

  There was no reply.

  ‘Shouldn’t you boys be out terrorising someone?’ Sheremetev asked, only half jokingly.

  ‘How do you know we aren’t?’ retorted one of them, slurring his words.

  Sheremetev ignored that, thinking it was just a smart-aleck remark, as he took another forkful of the fricassee.

  ‘So Stepanin has made it up with Barkovskaya, huh?’ he said, chewing on the chicken.

  The guards exchanged glances. There were a couple of smirks.

  ‘He made it up with her, didn’t he? Eleyekov told me today.’

  ‘Oh, yes, he made up with her alright,’ said one of the guards. ‘She had a big dish of fricassee to celebrate.’

  The sniggers were turning to laughter.

  ‘What is it?’ said Sheremetev. ‘What’s so funny?’

  One of the guards, drunker than the rest, giggled. ‘Stepanin’s —’

  ‘Shhhhh!’ hissed Lyosha, but he had drunk as much as the others and was struggling to keep a straight face.

  ‘What?’ said Sheremetev, taking a mouthful of fricassee.

  The giggling guard threw back his head, laughing. ‘The chickens will have company.’

  ‘What chickens?’

  ‘The chickens outside.’

  Sheremetev didn’t understand. The guards were laughing so much now they were almost crying. Lyosha made a last, vain attempt to stop them, and then, throwing a vodka down his throat, joined in.

  ‘The chickens outside?’ repeated Sheremetev uncomprehendingly.

  ‘In the pit,’ squeaked one of the guards.

  ‘The pit? What do you mean? The pit outside where —’

  ‘You’ve got to watch what you eat with a cook like Stepanin,’ blurted out another, before collapsing in amusement.

  ‘What’s he done?’ demanded Sheremetev.

  The guards around the table, doubled up, didn’t ev
en hear him.

  Sheremetev jumped up and pushed open the doors to the kitchen. Stepanin stood by a stock pot, spoon to his lips. ‘Vitya,’ demanded Sheremetev, ‘what’s going on?’

  The cook looked around. ‘Have you tried the fricassee, Kolya?’

  Suddenly Sheremetev’s blood ran cold. He clutched at his throat.

  Stepanin laughed. ‘It’s okay. You didn’t get the special batch. Only Barkovskaya got that.’

  ‘What have you done?’

  ‘Not so loud.’ He glanced around at the potwashers.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The only thing I could do.’

  ‘Vitya, you can’t kill her!’

  ‘Not so loud!’ hissed the cook. ‘Whatever happens to her, it’s her own fault. She left me no choice. She knew that herself.’ Stepanin turned calmly back to the pot and tasted with his spoon again. ‘Needs seasoning,’ he murmured to himself, and he threw in a big pinch of salt.

  Sheremetev watched him for a moment. The cook had been drinking, that was obvious, but there was something eerie about the way he was behaving. He seemed to be both completely insane and perfectly rational at the same time.

  ‘Where is she?’ demanded Sheremetev.

  ‘In her room.’

  ‘Is she still alive?’

  Stepanin shrugged.

  ‘I’m calling an ambulance.’

  ‘No.’

  Sheremetev reached for his phone.

  Stepanin grabbed his arm. ‘I can’t let you do that, Kolya.’

  ‘You can’t stop me.’

  ‘Can’t I?’ He hurled Sheremetev across the room.

  Sheremetev crashed under a bench, smashing the back of his head against a steel leg and knocking over a large bin of refuse that covered him in chicken carcases and offal and a stinking brown sludge that oozed over his shirt.

  Stepanin rushed to him. ‘Are you okay? I told those fucking potwashers to empty that stuff —’

  Sheremetev kicked at the cook, striking him hard on the knee, and got to his feet while Stepanin jumped in pain, slipping on chicken guts. He ran. The cook ran after him. He got to the kitchen door and . . . a wall of surly, drunken guards confronted him, not showing any signs of amusement now.

  One of them pushed him down on a chair.

  ‘He stinks,’ said another, holding his nose.